Simple conversation on the road between an old Lutheran and new
Pietist divided into twenty-eight questions
1 Pietist:  Dearest friend!  We have discussed many worldly things for a while now during our travels
and wanderings, so let us now reflect on faith and the Christian religion from the Word of God, for
we should learn above all how we can be saved, Lk 10:15, Acts 2:37, 1 Tim 4:8.

Lutheran:  Dear travel-companion!  It is good that you have come upon this idea, for I prefer to listen
to spiritual than worldly things, especially when it happens to God's glory and for the edification of
Christendom.  If our conversation occurred only out of curiosity or from ambition, it would be better
for us to keep silent, for God is angered and people irritated with useless quarrelling, 1 Cor 11:26,
Eph 4:29, Col 3:16

3. Pietist:  But many thousands of people are irritated by the Protestant faith, because they see in it
such little good fruit, which is also a difficulty for me, for our Saviour speaks to the Orthodox: Let
your light so shine before people, so that they see your good works, Mt 5:16, 1 Pet 2;12.

Lutheran:  God's Word can't abolish human unbelief and evil, nor change the order of the Christian
church.  One has to look at teaching and not at life, for there are everywhere more bad than good
Christians.  God will eradicate the weeds in his good time, Mt 13:30, Rom 3:3, Tit 1:15.

4. Pietist:  While you are saying that one has to look at teaching and not at life, I have to ask:  Cannot
a person in any faith be saved?

Lutheran:  No, definitely not, for there is properly only one saving faith and one Christian church,
just as there is only one God, and also one faith, one baptism, one Lord's Supper, for we people are
all called to one hope, Eph 4:4-5, Jn 10:1.

5. Pietist:  They say though, there is no difference in faith, whether one is Lutheran, Calvinist, or
Catholic, it is all the same, and if an unbaptised Jew or heathen lives a pious life, so too can he be
saved in his faith.

Lutheran:  That is wrong and against the divine order, for if this were the case there would be no
difference between a believing Christian and an unbaptised Jew.  What shameful deception!  Our
Jesus speaks so clearly:  Whoever believes and is baptised, he will be saved; whoever does not
believe and is not baptised, he will be damned, Mk 16:16, Jn 3:5, 15, 36

7.  Pietist:  Yes, so tell me as well, what do you think of the so-called Pietist?

Lutheran:  I can't praise them all, and don't want to dismiss them all either, for this is a big
difference.  For this reason, understand me well, I speak from Christian love, without respect of
persons.  Those Pietists, who believe fast in God's Word, remain in the pure Protestant faith and
who live Christianly according to it, those people I love and value.  However as far as the new
separatists are concerned, who due to imaginary holiness distance themselves from our faith and
from the order of the Christian church, of these I think little for they go too far and are not even
united in their own teaching.  Some dismiss the baptism of infants, some the office of preaching, and
some even dismiss the holy Lord's Supper, Lk 18:19, Acts 20:30, 1 Cor 11:19, 1 Tim 4:1.

8.  Pietist:  But one sees much that is good amongst them, and they have even woken sleeping
Lutheranism.

Lutheran:  That they show us our abuses and reproach our bad lives, in this point they are to be
praised and not to be despised.  But the Chiliast, Weigelian and papal dogmas I find impossible to
recognise as good, for they run against the Holy Scriptures, and divide the unity of the Christian
church.  And if you should look at their lives, you will find just as much bad fruit amongst them as
amongst us

10.  Pietist:  I regard present-day Lutheranism more as an ancient Babylon than as a new Jerusalem,
so for that reason I no longer go to church nor to the Lord's Supper, 2 Thes 3:6.

Lutheran:  It is surely not to be praised, that you despise the godly means of grace and irritate other
people by so doing, for it is not your calling that you should tutor the Protestant church.  If you don't
want to remain in our faith, then certainly go to be with your own.  You will not be suffered with us,
and a mangy sheep can infect the whole herd.  Unbelief eats up all around itself, like a cancer, 2 Cor
5:6, 2 Tim 2:17.

11.  Pietist:  You Lutherans think that it is enough for salvation if they are baptised, go to church and
to the Lord's Supper, even if they choose to live as they want, and many thousands continue to live
in such deception.  Most of them want to live without repentance and change of life and to be saved
with a dead, workless nominal faith, Tit 1:16, Mt 7:21

Lutheran:  That is of course to be lamented, that there are many hypocrites and Christians amongst
us, who only go to church and to the Lord's Supper through habit.  Their abuse alone cannot damage
the other: our teaching remains however a divine truth.  What can a Christian head of the family do
about it if he has pious as well as evil children?  The Christian church is a field, in which not only
good wheat but also weeds grow, Mt 13:37-38, Rom 3:13, Tit 1:15.

12.  Pietist:  I have completely separated myself and no longer go to your church, for most of them
there are bad people.  I find in our gathering, where there are only a few, more edification, for I
know that God is not in the congregation of the unrepentant, but where two or three pious people are
gathered in his name, there is he in the midst of them, Amos 5:21-22, Mt 18:20.

Lutheran:  You proud Pharisee! Why do you look at other people?  Test yourself well; God can
convert even the unrepentant.  By saying this, I don't want at all to despise the Christian home-
meetings, but one should not thereby neglect and dismiss the regular service of worship in the
church, but rather thank our dear God from the heart, that he lets his Word, the noble treasure, be
preached to us so generously in our churches, Lk 13:9, Rom 4:14, 2 Cor 13:5

14.  Pietist:  Now tell me as well, what do you think of the golden period of grace of the Kingdom of
Christ?  Don't you believe that our Saviour will come from heaven before the Day of Judgment and
with believing Christians rule and reign for a thousand years in this world? Rev 20:2, 4, 6

Lutheran:  Whoever easily believes, he will also be easily deceived.  You brooder, why do you ask
about such things, which are not necessary for salvation?  Rather take Luther's Catechism for
yourself and learn from that how you can believe rightly, and live Christianly, and die blessedly.  
That is better, re­main with the Holy Scriptures, and let go of the golden dreams of the Chiliasts.  
Look for the golden age in heaven and not on earth, Phil 3:20, Col 3:2†

16.  Pietist:  Don't you also believe, that the Jews are to be converted to the Christian faith before the
Day of Judgment?  Rom 10:1

Lutheran:  This opinion I leave to each to decide; it is not an article of faith.  But I do hope that the
fall of Babylon and the conversion of the Jews will happen before the end of the world.  However,
through which means the blind Jews will be converted, that I leave to God to worry about.  He
converted many thousands of people to the true faith through the solitary monk Luther.  I know that
he still has this skill, for he is powerful.  And while we Christians see that the poor Jews still stand
under the curse of God, we should pray for them daily, that they might once again be illumined and
converted, Hos 3:4-6, Rev 14:8

18.  Pietist:  What do you say then about perfection?  Don't you believe that a born-again Christian
can become perfect even in this life?  Mt 5:48, Rom 2:7

Lutheran:  Christians are not like the full moon, but rather the waxing moon, for whoever fancies that
he is already perfect is actually completely imperfect before God, for he is a hypocrite and does not
know the depravity of his heart.  Whoever though recognises himself as imperfect from a humble
heart, and seizes Christ in faith with true repentance is really perfect before God.  But note well,
even if we can't live in this world as pure as angels or without sin and can't attain complete
perfection, we must nevertheless, as far as it is possible in our weakness, make great efforts to strive
towards perfection and always look to become more holy and pious, Rom 7:18-19, 2 Cor 5:21, Eph
4:13.

19.  Pietist:  I would also like to know, what then the spiritual new-birth is.  I hear so little of it
preached, and yet much must be based on it, since our Jesus says: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless
someone is born anew by water and Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God, Jn 3:5-7.

Lutheran:  I do know, that you are of differing opinions on this teaching, so I will explain the issue
elaborately for you.  You see, Christ's merit and the holy baptism, that is actually the spiritual new-
birth, without which one cannot ordinarily be saved.  For adults, however, repentance and the
sanctification of life must be included, which is not demanded of unripened children.  The first main
grounds of our salvation are the mer­its of Christ, as Paul says:  Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead.  The other means of grace for our salvation is holy baptism, for God saves us
through the washing of re­birth and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he has liberally poured out
over us in baptism, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Jn 3:5-7, Tit 3:5-6, 1 Pet 1:3

22.  Pietist:  There are though few pious Christians, and I don't want to go to the Lord's Supper with
evil children of the world, so it is better that I stay away; salvation isn't bound up with it.

Lutheran:  Be ashamed, you who hold God in contempt.  You feed your body but you let your poor
soul languish.  Luther says: God has him­self instituted this holy mealtime and has invited all
repentant sinners to it.  Whoever doesn't come because of contempt or imagined holiness isn't
worthy of being called a Christian, Mt 22:5, 8

24.  Pietist:  I used to go to church and to the Lord's Supper, but now that I live in the state of
conversion, I don't go any more, for God has re­vealed him­self differently to my soul.

Lutheran:  Such revelations, which run counter to God's Word, are reprehensible.  God has not
inspired you to stay away from the holy Lord's Supper, but errant people have taught you this wrong
opinion.  O my God!  How tiresome Satan has caused such disgraceful division and confusion
concerning the holy love feast of Jesus!  The evil come to judgment in the Lord's Supper, and those
who want to be pious stay away, as if it were poison.  O Satan!  May the Lord curse you, Jude 9

26.  Pietist:  I don't want to argue with you much, for you are Orthodox, and you bind yourself in
your own words to the Weimar Bible.  I don't accept the explanation that the best expositor of the
Scriptures is the indwelling Spirit in people, for anointing teaches us everything.  But you have never
really recognised the Lutheran Babylon, and for that reason you don't know the beast and the false
prophets, 2 Cor 6:14, 17, 1 Jn 2:10, 27, Rev 19:20.

Lutheran:  I don't live under the anti-Christian Babylon as you think, but I am in the true Christian
church and have the rich treasures of grace, amongst which are God's Word, Christian baptism and
the holy Lord's Supper.  For according to God's Word I find in my conscience no true assurance of
my salvation in other religions, Mt 26:26, Mk 16:16, Rom 1:28, Heb 11:1.

27. Pietist:  Do you have with certainty the true saving faith? Heb 11:6

Lutheran:  Yes, thank God, I am in my heart persuaded and in my conscience assured that I have the
true faith, and even if all Papists, Pietists and Enthusiasts step up and scream and blaspheme against
us, our evangelical teaching would still remain a divine truth and our faith the only truly saving faith,
upon which we can live and die with comfort, if only we would live Christianly according to it.  
Defiance be to all false spirits which despise our faith, Ps 46:4, Mt 16:8, Is 30:21
from Book 22:
Whoever converts his neighbour from wandering, he has helped a
soul from death, James 5:19-20
JOSEPH SCHAITBERGER SENDBRIEF